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Bump, set, spike

Posted on April 20, 2012

As a young child, you grow up playing a multitude of games and sports. As time goes on, certain games or sports are weeded out and others made favorite until you only participate in a few activities. For me, I loved playing soccer, football, basketball, and volleyball. Soccer was my favorite, and so I chose to pursue it the most. It’s been my favorite sport since I was four years old. I was always too small and skinny for football, so I never ended up doing that. I was never tall enough to play basketball, either. However, volleyball still remained one of my favorite games all the way through high school. Gym class was the best when we played volleyball. Sadly, once I got to college, I didn’t think I would be able to really play ever again. However, life got so much more fun when I realized there was an intramural volleyball league.

As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one who really enjoys volleyball. My roommate and many of our friends like to play. We decided to throw a team together and join the intramural league. The rules are pretty simple: three guys and three girls on the court at all times and honesty when it comes to the ball being in or out. None of us had any idea of what it would be like, or how good or bad any of us would actually be, but we just went into our first game hoping to have a good time. It turned out to be one of the most fun things we’ve done all quarter.

In our first game, we had no team chemistry, and we were just trying to figure things out. But it was through this learning period that we got to know each other even better. We laughed at our mistakes and made little jokes at each other about whiffing the ball. We made a lot of mistakes, but we also saw how much potential we had to be a good squad. We ended up winning the first three sets and defeated our first opponent. The important thing was, though, that we were having fun and doing something we all enjoyed.

Throughout the season, we got our skills back and built team chemistry. We started passing the ball a lot more and we started to learn how each player played the game. Our fluidity increased more than I would have ever imagined. Even with the increase in our seriousness, we still had a ton of fun. We are now closer than ever as a team. I think that our ability to mesh well and work together well is what led us to win our next six games. We were at the top of the league, as first-years, which surprised us all.

The winning was nice of course, but it was not the important thing. We built better friendships and had a great time playing volleyball together. Our weekly volleyball games were a great stress reliever from all the studying we did during the week. We looked forward to the games all week, and I even began to look forward to them more than my weekly soccer games, which is impressive considering my love for the game of soccer.

About Emerson Talanda-Fisher ʼ15

Emerson is a sophomore from Kalamazoo, Michigan, studying Economics. While he hails from the West side of the state, he happens to be a big Detroit sports fan. When not in the classroom, he spends much of his time at practice or games for the Kalamazoo College menʼs soccer team. Needless to say, he already loves the new athletic facilities.